by Nhys Glover
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
DAEMON
A Reverse Harem Fantasy
Airshan Chronicles 2
Nhys Glover
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. With the exception of historical events and people used as background for the story, or those clearly in the public domain, the names, characters and incidents portrayed in this work come wholly from the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental
Published by Belisama Press
© Nhys Glover 2017
The right of Nhys Glover to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
This book is copyright. All rights reserved.
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please delete it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
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OTHER BOOKS BY NHYS GLOVER
ANCIENT ROMAN HISTORICAL ROMANCES:
Liquid Fire
The Barbarian's Mistress
Lionslayer's Woman (Sequel to Liquid Fire)
White Raven's Lover (Sequel to Barbarian's Mistress)
The Gladiator's Bride (Sequel to White Raven's Lover)
WEREWOLF KEEP TRILOGY:
Guardian of Werewolf Keep
Imprisoned at Werewolf Keep
Defiance at Werewolf Keep
Insane (A novella)
NEW ATLANTIS TIME TRAVEL SERIES:
Nine Lives (Cara/Jac)
The Dreamer's Prince (Jane/Julio)
Savage (Faith/ Luke)
Shared Soul (Maggie/Travis)
Bitter Oath (Liv/ Rene)
The Titan Drowns (Eilish/Max, Karl/Lizzie, Pia/Marco)
The Key (Kat/Bart)
Pieces (Krista/Dirk)
Second Chance (Bree/Hakon)
Watcher (Jin/Rafe)
Vision of You (Ellen/Duke)
Osiris (Takhara/Dan)
Causality (Willow/Jarvidh)
Gods of Time (Teagan/Jason, Lucien/Alba)
Book of Seeds (Shay/Cy)
SCORPIO SONS SF/SHIFTER ROMANCE SERIES:
1: Colton 2: Connor 3: Cooper 4: Chase
5: Cameron 6: Caleb 7: Conrad 8: Charles
GREYWORLD SERIES:
(Paranormal Sweet Romance)
1: The Anomaly
2: Mallory
3: Earth Angel
4: Crag Wraith
REVERSE HAREM FANTASIES:
THE AIRLUDS TRILOGY:
The Sacrifice
The Chosen One
Goddess Unbound
THE AIRSHAN CHRONICLES
The Five
Daemon
The Devourer
OTHERS:
The Way Home (Ghost Romance)
Caught in a Dream (SF Sweet Romance)
Labyrinth of Light (New Age Inspirational)
Find out more about Nhys and her books here:
www.nhysglover.com
Chapter One
There was no rest for the wicked, they say. We must be very wicked indeed because we weren’t going to be allowed to rest properly any time soon. Not only did we have to find the key to the underworld—some kind of circle or ring—but we had to do it while staying one step ahead of a cult called the Devourers. Those mad priests had some uncanny ability to dilute their essence to produce more fighters and a Soothsayer who could divine our actions even before we knew them ourselves.
If all that wasn’t enough then add the challenge of forming a loving and respectful bond between us five champions chosen by the Goddess, so we could become strong enough to take on the primordial evil the old Godling was about to release. That evil, called The Jayger, had water as its element. If it had its way it would create another flood that would destroy every living, air-breathing thing in the world.
Oh, and chances were good we’d have to leave the known world to journey over the sea—which everyone knows goes nowhere but down—to find the volcano where the Goddess hid the circle.
Easy, right? Time for a quick nap? I think not.
I’m being fatuous, I know. But sometimes when things get too overwhelming I get like that. Just like I stubbornly cling to my Dah’s way of speaking even when people look down their noses at me when I do it, and it’s getting harder and harder to remember how he used to talk. But I do remember that he used to say, “Your Mam and me think...” before Mam would correct him and say, “That’s Your Mam and I think...” And he’d jokingly look surprised and say, “I thought you were her Mam.” It was such an oft-repeated, awful joke it would be hard to ever forget it. And so, in my own head, and sometimes aloud, I speak like that. In Dah’s honour, because he was the only person I really loved for the first sixteen suncycles of my life.
So here we are, waiting for news on a Soothsayer of our own. Airsha has her moments, but we needed someone with more predictable—excuse the pun—talents. We need someone like the Devourer’s Soothsayer, who looks into a bowl of water and sees the future.
Gods’ Balls, do we even have a chance?
“Stop day-dreaming, Flame. That circle won’t find itself,” Laric sniped at me.
Looking up, I saw my least favourite person standing over me. I was sitting at a desk in the library, a pile of maps in front of me. I’d been here for the few sandglass-turns since the meeting, where Laric had told us all he knew. The other three of my men had gone off somewhere with Darkin.
What Laric had known wasn’t nearly enough. I suppose the most outstanding thing we’d learned was that he wasn’t quite the traitorous bastard we’d all taken him to be for all these suns. But that didn’t seem to erase my hatred for him. It was too ingrained to be removed so easily. And part of its persistence was Laric’s obvious poor opinion of me as a woman. And how verbal he was about telling me I wasn’t beautiful enough for someone as good-looking as him.
And he was remarkably good-looking, with his raven black hair and lashes, and those brilliant-blue eyes that were so striking and unusual. He couldn’t ever fade into the background and go unnoticed, even if he wanted to, which is what he’d been trying to do for a couple of suns now.
But remarkable was a word I’d probably use for all of the members of my harem-in-the-making. Landor was white. And no I don’t just mean he had pale skin, I mean he was white as snow. There’s a word for what he is—an albino. Or a partial albino, as his eyes aren’t pink. Which is good because I don’t think pink eyes would look good. Although a lot of things that I wouldn’t expect to look good, do look good on Landor. He is ju
st so beautiful. And there was no way he could ever go unnoticed in a crowd, because of that beauty as well as his whiteness.
Then there was Prior who was black. Blacker than pretty much anyone in any of the kinglunds that I’d ever seen. His skin was like ebony and his hair, what could be discerned between the lines of colourful beads, was like pitch. His almond-shaped eyes were so dark it was hard to tell the pupil from the iris. Which was a little off-putting at times.
Probably the only thing he has in common with Landor, in the looks department, was the fact that he’s also beautiful, although in a very different way. Where Landor was tall and slim, he was shorter, heavily muscled and barrel-chested. Where Landor was calm and serene for the most part; he was angry and turbulent almost all the time. And the contrasts didn’t end there. Landor was earth—a healer of exceptional skills. Prior was fire—a killer who even destroyed those he loved.
Let me clarify that a little. He doesn’t mean to kill them. It’s just that when his passions rise his fire explodes out of him. Which makes the possibility of bringing him into my harem fraught with fiery problems.
But they were both examples of exceptional male beauty.
And lastly, and to me the most remarkable of them all—Zem. I suppose I’m the only one who would call him remarkable. His hair, eyes and even his skin colour are brown, not some unusual and exotic brown, just brown brown. He’s neither remarkably tall, short, thin nor heavily muscled. He’s what people would likely call average. Until he’s unleashing his warrior power, which usually stops people in their tracks in surprise.
But there’s also another remarkable aspect to him that others don’t usually experience: his mind. It’s like one of those gadgets the Highlunders create. Which is where he came from. Maybe his magical father didn’t sire him as much as build him. He has this amazing ability to put together all sorts of puzzle-pieces and make sense of them in ways other people can’t. All right, in ways most people wouldn’t want to, even if they could. It’s exhausting and annoying, especially for someone like me who’s in his mind more often than not. Exhausting!
So that’s my remarkable harem of magical men I’m supposed to mould into one entity. Time for that nap yet? Not even close.
“No daydream. It must be a nightmare if you’re in it. Have you touched me recently?” I paused for a moment, letting the barb concerning his magic sink in before going on. “Go bother someone else, Laric!”
It was a knee-jerk reaction to snipe at him. After all, he’d been my enemy for two-and-a-half very long suns. I’d only ever hated two people enough to call them enemies... all right three, but Rama got off that list fairly quickly. So, aye, two people.
The first was Airshin, Airsha’s twin brother, who raped me when I was little more than a childling. He’d had his throat slit by Rama, which was probably when Rama ceased to be on my hate list.
The second was Laric, because we all thought he betrayed the brotherhood of Abominations he belonged to. The reason he was supposed to have done that? I’d made a fool of him in front of his brothers. In retrospect, it was a pretty flimsy reason. But at the time it made sense. He was the only one we knew of who had been told about the secret meeting Trace had organised and hadn’t turned up to it. It seemed logical to conclude he didn’t turn up because he knew it was a trap. It turned out he didn’t turn up because the Godling called him to the palace to dangle Laric’s younger sister before his eyes so he didn’t get any bright ideas about leaving the Godling’s secret army.
“But you’re so much more fun to bother, sweetness. And that cold shower didn’t help. I need to get laid badly and, as you’re part of my harem, I thought...”
All right, I knew he was baiting me for fun. I should have not let him get to me. But it was so hard not to! And with my nerves on edge already, it was even harder. Why not just give in to it?
“First,” I growled out through gritted teeth, “your need to get laid is none of my concern because, second, I’m not part of your harem. You’re supposed to be part of mine.” I put heavy emphasis on the word supposed. “But not even the Goddess can make me willingly give myself to you. Your brand of cocky is so very unattractive. Has anyone ever told you that?”
“Ouch,” hissed Laric in mock pain. “You really are a Flame, aren’t you? Though I still see you more as a Flea. A Flea bite is about as much pain as you cause me.”
I pushed back the chair I was sitting on and jumped to my feet. Faster than I usually expected myself to move, I had the annoying man laying across the ancient and brittle open scrolls, my arm pressed against his throat, cutting off his air supply.
All he did was laugh at me.
“Stop that at once or I will have you removed,” a censorious voice demanded from directly behind me.
Immediately, I released the bottom rung of my harem ladder and turned to face the scowling face of the chief cleric, an ancient man whose back was so bent it had formed itself into a crescent moon.
“Sorry... so sorry. He just annoyed me until I broke. I think you should ban him from the library so the rest of us can get our work done. I’m told there is a hole they used to use for prisoners. He’d do well in one of those.”
The cleric tutted as he shook his head. “Young lady, you need to keep your bedplay out of our library.”
“Bedplay!” I barked, so shocked I couldn’t keep my voice as soft as the library required.
I heard Laric snigger behind me. It only incensed me further.
Without thought, I swung around and landed a punch to his too-handsome face. I had the momentary pleasure of seeing his nose explode with blood, before Laric closed his hand over it and stared at me balefully.
“Out! Get out of here, the pair of you!” the cleric demanded, his pointed finger extended imperiously toward the huge double doors behind him. “If you have bled on one of those scrolls I will have you beaten. I would think you could put the needs of the world ahead of your own, in our moment of need. Shame on you both!”
Heads lowered in the requisite shame, we made our way from the library. I couldn’t read Laric’s mind anymore—more’s the pity—but from the look on the part of his face I could see behind his hand, he appeared as contrite as I was. We did have better things to do than snarl and bait each other.
“Now look what you made me do! I had work to do, even if you didn’t, you bastard!”
Before Laric had a chance to fire back at me, all hell broke loose as five midnight-blue robed figures appeared out of nowhere and tried to grab me.
Laric and I were both trained well enough to put aside our shock and go on the offensive instantly. I passingly wished that Laric’s magic would take effect a little sooner than it did. Even if he used his nightmares on these bastards, by the time they took effect the battle would be over.
My first task was to break the hold of the priest that had me. His arm was around my waist, pinning both arms to my side, while he hauled me backward down the empty corridor, his friends protecting his retreat. He was a monster of a man, quite literally twice my size.
It took me a moment to realise that they had made no move to capture Laric. They were engaging him only because he was fighting to save me. Why the sudden shift in targets? They’d been trying to recapture Laric for a suncycle. Now it was me?
In the giant priest’s mind I read his determination to take me. I was the target. He would die to capture me!
I shook off that realisation and focused on my opponent. Falling limp to become dead weight instead of struggling, I waited for the priest to shift his hold to accommodate me. Did he think I’d fainted? I was a lass, after all. I hoped so!
The moment I felt his iron muscles relax in preparation to alter his hold, I sent my elbows upward and my arms out, breaking the hold. Twisting my body to the side, I swung round with an elbow to his temple. With a grunt, he fell back a step, releasing me completely. Before he had a chance to recover, I lifted my knee and drove it into his groin.
With an agonised cry he dro
pped to his knees, hands over his fragile parts. I took the opportunity to put him out of his misery with a swift kick to his jaw. He flew sidewards into the wall.
But I had no time to feel satisfied, because another equally huge priest was on me. Wait... was there something wrong with my eyes? It didn’t look like an equally huge priest, it looked like the same priest I’d just knocked unconscious! His twin brother or...
My mind shied away from the thought. It was still just a hypothesis that these Devourers could water themselves down into two or more versions of themselves.
Though the fact that this one’s thoughts were identical to the other’s supported it. Take me hostage. Do not kill me!
I avoided his grabbing arms by bending double and sending an arm out to catch his kidney with a sharp punch. But he was so heavily muscled, the punch did nothing. And this one had learned from his brother, because he then countered every move I’d already used on his twin. His arm finally closed around my neck, cutting off my air, and began dragging me backward again. Struggle was useless and I was all out of moves.
“She doesn’t know where the ring is!” I heard Laric yell before I blacked out. “I do! You’re grabbing the wrong one!”
Chapter Two
I came to in the dark. It was cold and dank and smelled like... mouldy earth. I shifted to a sitting position, groaning as every muscle in my body complained.
“You all right?” a croaky voice said out of the darkness. Its owner sounded to be in as much pain as I was. But I had no idea who was there. Another prisoner I’d been thrown in with?
“Flame? Are you all right?” The voice was stronger this time and distinctly male. Someone I knew, obviously. Laric?
